


Fine Art

by fadedjae (Jaetion)



Category: Digimon
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, M/M, My First Fanfic, POV Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-15
Updated: 2012-12-11
Packaged: 2017-10-11 02:52:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaetion/pseuds/fadedjae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The trials and tribulations of one Motomiya Daisuke.  Starting high school's a new chapter in his life, but is he ready to let go of his past?  I started writing this thing waaaay back in 2001, then updated on and off over the years.  It's been ages since I was in the Digimon fandom, but I keep coming back to this story - This is version 3.0; fanfiction.net has version 2.0.  The first few chapters are probably from 2005-2007.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Blotched

It wasn’t like blowing up buildings or punching dragons right in the face, but the first week of wearing uniforms and having a shitload of homework was OK, I guess. Me, Takeru, and Hikari rode the train together, which sucked because it meant dealing with Takeru’s bright and early cheerfully annoying existence all the way to school, but which was also awesome because Hikari in the morning was like eating a bowl of sunshine for breakfast. We all got into high school together, even though Jun said that the only way I’d pass the entrance exam was if I dressed up Ken and made him take it in my place. So what if that’s practically what happened? There was no way I was going to let Takeru get Hikari all to himself - And it was the same school that Taichi-sempai had gone and Ishida-sempai, too, before he got too cool for it and quit to become a kick-ass rock star. So what if it meant that Ken had to sleepover for practically a whole month while he helped me study? I made it in totally fair and square, no matter what Jun said.

That’s what I was thinking about, about Ken staying over everyday and all night, while the train rolled us to school. I pulled out my phone and flipped it open. He hadn’t sent me an email since the day school started and hadn’t called me since a week before that.He was probably busy with homework and clubs and interviews and smart stuff.

“Daisuke! Stop daydreaming and do your homework!”

“Huh?”

Hikari nudged my shoulder and pointed to the open notebook in my lap. “I can’t believe it’s only the second week and you’re already falling behind. You need to work really hard now, Daisuke.”

“Yeah or else I’m going to tell Ken on you.” Takeru grinned and bent down to point at question fifteen. “The answer’s four point eight kilometers an hour. I remember getting stuck on that one last night.”

I wrote it down to fill the empty space, figuring any answer was better than none. “Cool. Next?”

Takeru rubbed his fingers through his hair. “Uh, I think it’s sixty even. Sixty kilometers an hour.”

Hikari opened her bag and pulled out a folder with yellow flowers on it and carefully removed a sheet of paper. I snorted and grabbed it from her. “You’ve got homework too? So my bad habits finally rubbing off on you?”

“Hardly," she said with a giggle to soften the blow of the insult. "Actually, I was just looking over the club list for this year. I'm thinking about joining the astronomy club, since Miyako-chan’s doing that at her school and we might be able to meet up, but the tennis club looks good, too, and I know that Sora-sempai has had a lot of fun with them." She sighed, blowing some strands of hair that had escaped her butterfly barrette. "Or maybe the art club. Even if I’m terrible at drawing, I hear that they do a lot of photography too, and it’d be cool to get back into that. And the art club only meets twice a week, so I could even join something else."

"The art club? Damn," I said as I eyed the list. "Won't that make you too busy? Didn't you want to get a job, too?"

She sighed again, and grabbed the piece of paper and tucked it away. "Well, I could use the extra money," she said slowly. "But, mostly," she paused and looked quickly around before lowering her voice. I leaned in to share her secret, inhaling the flowery scent of her hair. "I want to make the most of my free time, now that I - that we - have some. I want to make up for everything I missed in elementary school and junior high. So now we have the chance to be normal kids. It's such a relief, don't you guys think?"

Her brown eyes flickered back to her paper and we both stared at it like any minute it was going to jump up and do a dance routine. I felt the vaguely unpleasant feeling of the foundation crumbling, an earthquake or a landslide. I looked up at Takeru but he was looking out the window at the trees blurring outside. I opened my mouth to ask them about the Digital World, about the rest of the gang, about how Hikari didn’t mean she wanted to ditch all of that for clubs, did she? But the train pulled into our stop and I crammed everything back into my bag and we all got out. And the Takeru brought up his brother and how his bass player blew up another amp, which was too good of a story to interrupt.

When the morning routine of greeting our teacher and waving my hand to prove I totally hadn't stayed home all day in my underwear playing Super Dragon Fighters Rockets 2, fulfilling the requirement of attending class had finished, I glanced over at Takeru, who sat a row to the side and a desk in front of me. I scribbled a note to him asking what he thought Hikari meant, but when I tossed it at his head, it just bounced off his hair and landed by his foot. He’d be terrible at soccer with reflexes like that. 

She probably meant that it was a pain in the ass to get to the Digital World, I thought as our homeroom teacher started droning about class duties. And it was. It was harder to sneak into the computer lab and since Koushiro got into some insane college where he practically had to turn into a computer himself, we didn’t have someone around to monitor all the crazy shit that the Digital World did. Portals slammed closed and the didn’t open again for days, some moved so you got dropped in the ocean instead of on the beach, and some disappeared completely. I nodded to myself. That’s probably what Hikari meant. There was no way she regretted all the awesome stuff we’d done. That’d be insane - The Digital World was the greatest place on earth. Or not on earth. Wherever the hell it was. Me and Ken spent a ton of time there in junior high, since it was easier to get meet there then deal with the trains and buses from getting from my place to his apartment. We’d go and then fight some bad-ass flying elephant or something or then do races with the Kamemon and totally wipe the floor with them. Sometimes Taichi-sempai would come along and we’d recruit a bunch of Digimon and play soccer. But whatever we did, it was awesome.

A few times the whole gang managed to meet up. Even Ishida, who did concerts and commercials and was trying to get into acting, too. And even Kido-sempai, who almost cried the time the portal dumped us in the water. It’d been awesome getting a ride from a bunch of fish back to shore and then I just peeled off my jacket and ran around until my clothes dried. The girls ran off to some secret girls-only base somewhere so we couldn’t spy on them when they took off their clothes, which sucked. From my seat I could see the pool through the windows of the gym and I stared at the blue line of water. Next time we’d have to bring a change of clothes or wear our swim suits. It’d have to wait until we had a break in school, though, I thought as our teacher strolled by my desk. I scribbled something about the Heian Period when she paused and then scribbled it out again when she moved to the next row. Hikari in a bathing suit was worth the wait. Hikari in a school bathing suit was even more worth it.

Lunch finally came after the longest day ever and as soon as the bell rang, I rummaged through my bag. There had to be at least a few yen somewhere; all I needed was enough to buy some bread. 

“This note’s from you, right? ‘Yo, you understand girls?’”

I looked up as Takeru tossed a rolled up piece of paper onto my desk. “Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. Hey, you got anything good for lunch?”

“Yeah, my brother came over last night and made us onigiri with plum.” He pulled his chair over and then opened his bento box and poked at the stuff inside. “At least he didn’t put faces on them this time. He gets in these weird moods. Anyway, what’d your note even mean?”

“Hikari-chan. You know, what she was talking about this morning,” I explained as I took a bite of an onigiri. They were good even when Ishida went crazy with colors. “I don’t get it. Who cares about clubs and stuff when we can go to the Digi-”

“Daisuke,” Takeru said firmly like he’d become a teacher all of a sudden. He jerked his head to the cluster of girls sitting near us. They looked over and giggled and one of them even wagged her fingers at Takeru who gave them a smile back. “Just keep it down about that, ok? Anyway, aren’t you doing soccer again this year?”

“Yeah, of course! What’d they do without me?”

“Well, so Hikari wants to do join clubs too.” He popped a tomato into his mouth. “What’s weird about that?”

“You know what’ weird about it. She was acting like she wants to forget all about the D- You know, about that place that we used to go to all the time and is awesome.”

“So she wants to try new things. Maybe you should, too. I’m going to try for the newspaper, maybe see if I can learn how to write articles. It’ll be fun.”

I frowned. “I still think it’s weird. She’s weird. You’re definitely weird. Who cares about stupid school clubs when there are monsters to fight and a world to save and stuff?”

“We haven’t done that in years, Daisuke.”

“So what?” I asked. “I still got my goggles. Anytime anyone needs to be rescued and bam! I put these babies on and I’m ready to kick ass.”

“You carry them around with you?”

“Yeah!” I fished the goggles out of my backpack and passed them Takeru. He stretched the band and the plucked out a dangling thread. “Ok, so they’re a little old. They still fit! Sort of.”

“You’re the weird one,” Takeru scoffed. You can’t wear these now.”

“Why not?” I grabbed them back and stuffed them away. “You’re just jealous that Taichi-san didn’t give you a pair. All you got was that dumbass hat.”

“All I’m saying is that joining a new club or two’s a good idea.”

“Fine,” I said with a shrug. “Me and Ken’ll have fun in the Digital World without you. Gimme another piece of egg.”

After lunch was over, we still had another ten thousand hours of class before the day finally ended and they let us go home. I looked out the window again and wished it was summer vacation. Again. I glanced over at Takeru who was writing down notes about whatever our teacher was talking about. The girls who giggled at us were glancing over at him too and I snorted before turning away. He’d probably have a club dedicated to him by the end of the week full of fangirls. If Hikari ended up joining that, I quit school to go live like a monk on a mountain or something. Or just move permanently to the Digital World and only let Ken come in. 

Our teacher called on him and Takeru stood up with his book in hand. He read whatever it was and sat back down. Behind me I could hear some girl whispering, “Takaichi-kun’s pretty smart. And didn’t he look cool just now?”

Maybe Takeru did know what he was talking about, I thought grudgingly. Besides, how hard would it be to join the stupid art club? HIkari had said they met twice a week - I could do that and soccer, no problem. With Takeru busy with the school newspaper, me and Hikari would have the club room all to ourselves. Yeah! I’d join the art club, date Hikari, and with Ken helping me with school, I’d beat Takeru so hard on finals that he’d have to go back to junior high.

And people said high school was hard.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was probably written circa 2006. I had all these planned explanations for the character names and personalities, but now I forget what the hell I was talking about.
> 
> Anyway! Daisuke gets suckered into the art club.

The bell finally rang and before Takeru even put down his pencil, I was up out of my seat and running through the door. School was over and Hikari was waiting for me. At the lockers I pulled out my cell and sent her an email, and then leaned against the wall where I had a good view of everyone. Once we met up we'd head to the art clubroom together; or maybe I'd be able to convince her to forget about it and go to the Digital World instead. Takeru would just have to sit around at a computer and wait for us to come back.

Kids were pouring out from everywhere but I didn’t see Hikari’s cute face in the crowd. I flipped my phone open and checked it again but nope, I hadn’t gotten an email back from her. Calling her went nowhere, too. I froze: What if she’d been kidnapped? Or fell down the stairs and had to go the hospital for a brain transfusion but they accidentally gave her the deformed brain of a serial killer?

“Motomiya-kun, move,” a voice said next to me. “You’re blocking my locker.”

“Huh? Sorry.” I stepped to the side to let Tanizaki get to his locker. He rolled his eyes but then grinned.

“You doing soccer this year?”

“Course.” I said with a snort. We’d been on the soccer team together in junior high; Tanizaki was the best goalie of all time, but he sucked at every other position. Unlike me who was awesome at everything. “We gotta get to the championship, right? Can’t do it without me! Hey, did you see Hikari on your way here?”

He stopped trying to unlock his locker and shook his head. “No, didn’t see her. Maybe she went to a club meeting.”

“Thanks!” Hikari hated being late to things, so she probably had gone right to the art club after class. I took off down the hallway, jumping over a spilled pile of papers and not even slowing down when two sophomores carrying a monitor blocked the whole entire hall - I dropped down and slid on my knees underneath it like the totally righteous ninja leader of the Chosen Children that I am. I bet everyone applauded but I didn’t stay around to sign autographs.

Club rooms were split up by type, so all the artsy clubs shared a corridor. I passed the photography club and the fashion club and then screeched to a halt. Someone had made a little sign for the art club’s room: “Art Club” was written in English with red birds making each letter.  
I quietly opened the door to look into the room: three people and none of them Hikari. Two upperclassmen were leaning against the long table set up in the middle of the room and a vaguely familiar freshman with huge pigtails was sitting down, staring at her notebook. The table had a neat stack of paper and colored pencils arranged on it, but the walls were bare and the room basically empty. No naked marble statues, no oil paintings, no other art-related crap.

So where the hell was Hikari? I sighed and jammed a hand through my hair. If something happened to her while I was wasting time by the lockers, I’d never forgive myself. What if she’d been attacked by mutant turtles or warped into another dimension or -

"A new member!" An arm snaked through the door and latched onto my elbow. I managed to blink twice at it before I was yanked into the room.

"Ow, ow, ow! Hey, what's the big idea? And hey, that hurts! Leggo!"

She completely ignoring my protests and clenched my arm in a death-lock. "Welcome to the world of art!" She said, leering down at me with one of those insane expression that Yamato’s fangirls always had. "Passion, beauty, imagination... These are our... Our... Hmm... What's the word I'm looking for..." She turned to the other upperclassman and I pulled my arm back. "Our?"

"Accoutrements?" He said as he shrugged. "I don't know."

"No, no.” She shook her head and hit me in the face with her long ponytail. “Accoutrements are accessories."

"Well, then, how about-"

“Look, you can call them whatever the hell you want.” I said as I backed out through the door. “I gotta go. Someplace. Far away. Forever. So have a nice life." I turned around and this time managed to make it two steps into the hallway before being tackled again. "Hey, let go!”

She had me in a headlock this time, holding tight with rhinoceros-like strength. I probably five or six centimeters over her and was in perfect, sexy condition due to years of soccer and saving the world, but since I didn't have a rocket launcher in my backpack, I didn't stand chance against her.

"You're Motomiya, right? You played soccer in junior high." Crazy upperclassman number one loosened her headlock that she had gripped me in, but still held fast. "Could it be that the rough and tumble life of a jock has left you craving more? Are you searching for meaning, but are unable to find it in the sweaty and malodorous world of sports?"

"Huh? Hey, I like soccer!"

"Maybe your sensitive soul is crying out for the... the..."

We both looked at the other upperclassman who stared blankly back at us. "How about abetment?"

"No, no, all wrong. That's for criminals. Nevermind; you're no help at all." She ignored his grumbled apology and stared down her nose at me. "Maybe you're here to impress someone? Artists are impressive, right, Miso-chan?"

She turned around to look at the girl and since my neck was still encased, I turned with. Miso-chan startled and colored, apparently she had zoned out during our epic battle, and nodded frantically. "Umm... yes?"

"Exactly! So Motomiya, are you here to paint a picture for your girlfriend?"

"What? No way! Where'd you get a stupid idea like that? I told you, I came in here by accident! Let me go!"

She probably realized how dangerous it was to hold onto an awesome power like me, so the upperclassman let me go and I stepped back toward the door. She sent an evil look at other guy and he rose from his seat and gave me an apologetic smile. "What Takahashi means, Motomiya-kun, is that the art club could use some new members. Even if you came in here by accident, you should consider joining. Akane and I are graduating this year, and we'd both be disappointed if the club had to be disbanded. We've spent a lot of time with the club, but well, it's seen better days. I don’t think the club will interfere with soccer practice and –"

"Man, Hitoshi, show some dignity!" Takahashi pouted and crossed her arms over her chest. "We don't need you. It'd just be nice to have some new blood."

"I'm Inaba Hitoshi," Inaba-sempai said politely. "And this is Takahashi Akane and Miso-chan, who’s a freshman, too. Anyway, it's a pleasure to meet you."

"Yeah, you too, I guess. So it’s just you guys in here, right? No Yagami Hikari? She’s about this tall with brown hair and super cute?”

The two upperclassmen looked at each other and then shook their heads. Miso tugged on one of her pigtails and then shook her head, too.

“Damn,” I said under my breath. “You sure? Because I thought she said she was gonna join.”

“Ah ha! I knew there was a girl involved.” Takahashi had a I’m-right-and-you-know-it expression on her face. She tossed her long ponytail over her shoulder and grinned at me. “Let me guess: You were going to join along with her and impress her with your artistic talents. Join the art club - Embark on new adventures!”

“Adventures?” I hadn’t been on an adventure in way too long. Art club was sounding cooler. Just a little bit. 

“Have a seat, Motomiya-kun,” Inaba said. “Maybe Yagami is still on her way.”

I sulked down into the seat next to Miso-chan, where I had a clear view of the door. Once Hikari saw me being all artistic, she’d be so impressed she’d forget Takeru forever. And that was worth putting up with two crazy seniors.

“All right. Now we’ll commence, taking our first steps on our journal toward the world of art." Takahashi waltzed around the table and I twisted in my seat so she could see the expression on my face. She ignored my grimace of horror and leaned between me and Miso-chan, dropping onto the table some paper and pencils. "Here, my young apprentices, these are your weapons with which to wage war against the banality of daily life.”

“Banality,” Inaba repeated. “Good word.”

“You like that?” Takahashi grinned across the table at Inaba-sempai. “Anyway, get ready to change your world. Today we begin. Today you become artists.” She stopped and took a step to the side and then, with one fluid motion, grabbed the empty chair next to me, lifted it up, and hoisted it onto the table. I made a mental note only to insult her from a distance. "Today, you draw a chair."


End file.
